Doug Tallamy (Photo courtesy of the University of Delaware)
Doug Tallamy’s lecture started from a basic and logical premise: if you take away the places for wildlife to live and feed, you will lose your wildlife. We are all aware that habitat destruction leads to a loss of species, but very few of us believe that we can make a difference or that we are directly linked to the process. I mean this in a non-judgmental way and from a place of empowerment.
Some of you may think that this is an early case of ‘election fever,’ but alas it is not. Last month I sat in an auditorium and listened to a very convincing and lucid proponent for environmental restoration and species diversity. Regardless of his own political views, with respect to the biome Tallamy is definitely not a democrat. “All plants,” he asserts, “are not created equal in their ability to support wildlife.”
Instagram fans have flocked to this coy but colorful flower. (Thanks, Bergdorf's.)
Of all the flowers coloring the scenery of our Orchid Show, one in particular–technically not even an orchid–is drawing gasps and adoration in spades. Known as Medinilla magnifica to science (and the Showy Medinilla, or “Malaysian orchid” to everyone else), its bowing proliferation of pale pink flower clusters has found a home in botanical gardens throughout the world.
And you can have one at home if it suits you.
Contrary to its bold presentation, the Medinilla isn’t quite as rare or exotic as assumptions would suggest. It’s been raised successfully in conservatories from here to Belgium, where the late King Baudouin championed the flower through the latter half of the 20th century. So infatuated was he with this Southeast Asian native that it was placed on the country’s 10,000 franc note. But as a plant endemic to the small island of Luzon in the Philippines, Medinilla’s distribution in the wild has not proven broad enough to escape the consequences of horticultural fascination. It’s said that the demand of collectors has caused a decline in natural populations to such a degree that many believe the plant now exists only within the plant trade.
No, not the cherries you’re accustomed to. Cornelian cherries, rather. The Japanese cornel, brightly colored in its spot above the Peggy Rockefeller Rose Garden, not only gives us these flirtatious blooms in early spring, but cheerful red fruits later in the year.
Much ado about the weather this week. Yesterday was a mid-spring day borrowed straight from early May, sending most of our office staff into ecstatic fits. I’m all but convinced one or two of us were out on the grass, belting out celebratory verses from The Sound of Music. Today it’s a bit cooler, of course. But with the warm sun and a promise of picturesque afternoons for Saturday and Sunday, winter seems all but out the door.
The dogwood is blooming, the crocuses are bright, and the Orchid Show is settling into the groove for its second big weekend. This is the perfect opportunity to hop a subway train to the Bronx and treat yourself to Patrick Blanc’s Vertical Gardens. But even if orchids aren’t your thing (a rare condition, albeit understandable), the schedule is packed with activities to suit.
Ceratostema silvicola (Photo courtesy of Meri Shaffer)
Far south in the Pine Barrens of New Jersey, where the sandy flats aren’t struck through with creeks, you’ll find parcels of land dedicated to row upon row of scraggly bush. It’s the antithesis of a tropical landscape; like large-scale agriculture in the midwest, the skies over these tended fields are big and empty, with the occasional conifer contorting itself under and around a telephone wire near the bordering dirt roads. The pine woods sit further off.
In the winter it’s a vacant space save for the blueberry bushes. But these berries have a relative of a more tropical disposition. Perhaps not down in southern Jersey, but here in the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory, certainly.
